P&G’s Bandwidth Concern Shared by Other CIOs

Reporter

Procter & Gamble is curbing access to streaming video Website Netflix and streaming music destination Pandora to free up network bandwidth for its 129,000 employees, according to The Wall Street Journal’s Emily Glazer. The move came after P&G found that employees were viewing 50,000 five-minute YouTube videos and listening to 4,000 hours of music on Pandora on the average day.

Network throttling is so often the purview of the CIO, who also must delegate and monitor employee use of Facebook and Twitter. Yet while users typically dip their beaks in those social networks and flit away like a hummingbird from its feeder, consumption of other bandwidth-hungry streaming websites can be a much more egregious affair. Wholesale web streaming chokes networks and a global company like P&G can’t tolerate sluggish access to the web. This is why P&G is prohibiting prolonged web streaming.

P&G’s isn’t the only company that is concerned about employee content consumption. Amtel CEO PJ Gupta told Digits that Apple’s new iPad, with its high definition display and 4G wireless radio, can prove taxing to corporate networks. These stories serve as warnings to all CIOs at large corporations to monitor their employees web content consumption.

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited's fourth annual Millennial Survey reveals the business activities and outcomes members of Generation Y would prioritize if they held leadership positions. In highlighting millennials' priorities, the survey results draw attention to this generation's values and the themes large enterprises should speak to if they wish to attract and retain members of this rising workforce.